World Mixed Doubles Championships

World Mixed Doubles Championships - Printable Version

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World Mixed Doubles Championships - ritchiebaby - 16-04-2015

This event is run in tandem with the World Seniors in Sochi, but is being held at the Ice Cube Curling Centre from Saturday 18 April.

A total of 30 teams will take part this year in 3 groups.

Group A consists of Australia; Czech Republic; Denmark; France; Japan; Russia; Slovakia; Switzerland; Turkey and USA.

Group B is comprised of Austria; Brazil; China; Finland; Italy; Latvia; New Zealand; Norway; Slovenia and Sweden.

Group C is Belarus; Canada; England; Estonia; Hungary; Korea; Poland; Romania; Scotland and Spain.

England - Lana Watson and Alan Macdougall

Scotland - Lee McCleary and Judith McCleary

The weekend games

Saturday - England v Estonia, Scotland v Roumania.

Sunday - Hungary v Scotland, Canada v England, Spain v Scotland, England v Korea.

A number of athletes competing this year have won medals at this event in the past, including the 2013 gold medallists Dorottya Palancsa and Zsolt Kiss from Hungary, the 2010 gold medal winner Peter Dron from Russia, the 2014 and 2012 silver medallists Camilla Johansson and Per Noréen from Sweden and the 2014 bronze medallist Irantzu Garcia Vez of Spain.

Switzerland are the reigning champions and are represented this year by Carole Howald, who is a 2015 and 2014 World Women’s Curling Championship gold medallist, in addition to winning the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships last year, all as an alternate. Her teammate, Marc Pfister, skipped Switzerland men to a seventh place finish at the Ford World Men’s Curling Championship 2015 that concluded earlier this month in Halifax, Canada.

Briefly, the game is basically the same as normal, except that teams have only six stones each (instead of eight) and one of those stones from each team is prepositioned on the centreline before each end of play starts. Player one delivers the first and last stones and player two plays the second, third and fourth stones. If they choose to, the two players may swap positions from one end to the next while sweeping can be done by one or both team members.

Friday 24 April will host one tie-breaker game if required, followed by one quarter-final qualification game. All four quarter-final games will then take place that evening. Both semi-finals will take place on Saturday 25 April, followed by the bronze and gold medal games.

RE: World Mixed Doubles Championships - St Charles Owl - 17-04-2015

What is the idea behind positioning the two stones on the center line at the start of each end??

RE: World Mixed Doubles Championships - ritchiebaby - 17-04-2015

To my mind, the basic idea is to limit the number of take-outs in an end, thereby keeping more stones in play. The team that sets the stones in their starting positions for the first end is determined by the toss of a coin (or the team closest to the centre in a pre-tournament draw challenge) and thereafter the non-scoring team decides the starting positions. One stone is set just behind the centre of the circles and the other stone is set short of the circles. The team whose stone is short of the circles starts the end and no stone is moved out of play until after the first 3 stones have been played.

Although the scoring and general play is the same as the normal game, Mixed Doubles requires a different tactical outlook. This explains why the Mixed Doubles teams are often not made up of the top regular international curlers.

RE: World Mixed Doubles Championships - St Charles Owl - 17-04-2015

It is funny how sports evolve over the years and rules like this end up getting put in place to solve a particular problem. As a complete newbie to the sport it seems a very strange ruling but I am sure it solved whatever problem they were dealing with when it was introduced.

RE: World Mixed Doubles Championships - ritchiebaby - 17-04-2015

To continue our discussion, the old style of play in many games was for the team in the lead to take out any opposition stones that were in play, sometimes even their own ones, to stop the opposition trying to get in behind them to score shots. A skill in itself, but totally boring to watch, as well as play against. To combat this, the Free Guard Zone was first introduced about 25 years ago where the first four stones could not be used to take any stone not in the rings out of play. This rule was gradually accepted to be in the best interests of the game and is still in operation today.

Mixed Doubles is a relatively new style of competition, but the aim was the same - to make the actual playing of shots and the tactics much more important than the sweeping. I've played Mixed Doubles a few times and it's very challenging as you need to be much more precise in playing the stone. There's less sweeping in that the player has to catch his/her own stone to sweep it or the player at the far end has to come to meet it. As you'll have seen, in the normal rinks game, two sweepers can sweep it all the way.

RE: World Mixed Doubles Championships - ritchiebaby - 18-04-2015

Saturday scores - England 1 Estonia 10, Scotland 16 Romania 0.

Two totally different results for the home countries with England scoring in the first end, which obviously annoyed the Estonians. Meanwhile Scotland scored 4,2,3,2,5 so that was the game over quickly.

RE: World Mixed Doubles Championships - ritchiebaby - 19-04-2015

Sunday scores - Hungary 8 Scotland 5, Canada 11 England 3, Spain 10 Scotland 9, England 6 Korea 8.
Nool pwah for the Home Countries today despite Scotland scoring a 5 in the first end against Spain.

Monday's games - England v Scotland, England v Hungary, Scotland v Estonia - definitely a point available here.

RE: World Mixed Doubles Championships - St Charles Owl - 20-04-2015

Not looking good for England!!

RE: World Mixed Doubles Championships - ritchiebaby - 20-04-2015

It's no better for Scotland, SCO!

Today's scores - England 9 Scotland 8, England 1 Hungary 13, Scotland 7 Estonia 8.
England went from the sublime to the ridiculous today.
In the big derby match this afternoon, Scotland once again went to 5-0 up, this time after 3 ends, and were 3 up going into the last end, but still managed to lose. All credit to England for never giving up.
The English duo then went on to be demolished by Hungary after losing a 5 in the first end. Scotland and Estonia exchanged 4s in the first half of the game, but Estonia edged ahead at the right time.

Both England and Scotland have only 1 win and will now fail to qualify for the latter stages, barring famine, pestilence or war. Whistle

Tomorrow's games - Scotland v Canada, Romania v England.

RE: World Mixed Doubles Championships - ritchiebaby - 22-04-2015

Catch-up Results after a night off
Scotland 9 Canada 5, Romania 3 England 11, Poland 3 England 7, Belarus 3 Scotland 8, Spain 4 England 7, Scotland 9 Korea 3.

That's much more like it for England and Scotland. 100% wins yesterday and today, but much too late, leaving both in mid-table with 4 wins and 4 losses.

Their final games tomorrow
Scotland v Poland, England v Belarus.